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Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) may be a better treatment option than whole brain radiotherapy in patients who have 4 or more brain metastases in cancer. Brain metastases are when cancer spreads into the brain after starting elsewhere in the body. Stereotactic radiosurgery involves giving high dose of radiation to areas of cancer and minimising dose to other normal parts of the brain. A recent phase 3 trial conducted in the USA and presented at the recent ASTRO conference in 2020 showed that patients who had SRS instead of radiotherapy to the whole brain had lesser side effects to the brain and similar benefits as compared to patients who had radiotherapy to the whole brain.

A study from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has shown that quadrivalent HPV vaccination (Gardasil) of young girls has significantly reduced the occurrence of cervical cancer in those girls that have been vaccinated. The study found that in over 500,000 girls who received the vaccine, cancer occurred in 19 patients (0.004%), whereas in girls who did not have the vaccine, cancer occurred in 538 among 1,145,112 women (0.05%). The study showed that the risk of getting a cervical cancer among girls who had vaccination before the age of 17 was 88% lower as compared to those who were not vaccinated. The investigators of the study suggested that the results “support the recommendation to administer quadrivalent HPV vaccine before exposure to HPV infection to achieve the most substantial benefit.”

Research published in the British journal of cancer should that Australian scientists tested a method of analysis of breath in a person to help diagnose the presence of head and neck cancer. Patients suspected with head and neck cancer were asked to take a deep breath through the nose and blow into a bag. This air that was blown into a sealed bag was analysed by mass spectroscopy for volatile organic compounds. This way, the researchers found that the breath test had a sensitivity of about 80% in predicting those patients who were likely to have a cancer.